Union Station Battles For Survival Allentown Developer Leads Drive To Save Union Station

June 22, 1986|by RICH HARRY, The Morning Call

Walking slowly in and around Union Station in Bethlehem, Donald Goodman seems oblivious to the windows that are boarded up, the weeds that grow everywhere, the interior rooms that are dark and cold, and the graffiti that screams "Conrail Yes! Norfolk Southern No!"

Donald Goodman thinks the place has charm.

"I knew Union Station for many years," says Goodman, an Allentown businessman and developer. "I took the train many times when I used to have an office in New York, back in the '50s. It was a very active terminal, and the people always seemed to be such a jovial group. It looks like it's in pretty bad shape now, but I think it has potential."

He speaks like a true optimist, which Goodman has to be to plot out his revival plan for the decaying 61-year-old structure. After the building stopped serving passengers more than two decades ago, Union Station, located just off 2nd Street and just east of the Hill-To-Hill Bridge in a rust- speckled section of South Bethlehem, has served as sanctuary mostly for pigeons, groundhogs and vandals.

And it sure looks it.

"We cleaned the place up a while back," Goodman says, eyeing a long wooden bench severely splintered at one end, "but it looks like the vandals came back."

Goodman is standing in a cavern of a room where past generations once waited for the Black Diamond Express, perhaps carrying honeymooners to Niagara Falls, or the Asa Packer, perhaps carrying immigrants to the coal mines of Luzerne County, or the John Wilkes, perhaps carrying families to the homes of relatives in Pittston, or any of the other steam-belching passenger trains operated by the Lehigh Valley and Northern Pennsylvania/Reading railroads.

While a light rain outside makes things seem even gloomier inside, Goodman begins talking about bustling restaurants, shiny antique shops, a spiral staircase, a second-floor balcony and other features that he hopes will help turn Union Station into a thriving commercial enterprise.

"We think we see a future for it," says Goodman, president of the Bethlehem Furniture Manufacturing Corp., Allentown, and a developer whose projects include properties along S. 9th Street in Allentown and the Conestoga Court condominiums at 360 Conestoga St., Bethlehem.

"We envision a revival on the South Side and feel strongly for the nostalgia of a railroad station," Goodman says. "These kinds of projects have become real vibrant business entities - in Pittsburgh, in Hartford, in Scranton. Three years ago, we saw what was happening inother communities. We manufacture hotel furniture and furnished the Hilton at Lackawanna Station in Scranton. That inspired us to go with Union Station."

Civic leaders across urban America have praised attempts to breathe new life into railroad buildings that have gone to seed in the face of increased competition for the transportation dollar. Locally, the former Jersey Central passenger station off Lehigh Street in Bethlehem has been turned into the Depot restaurant. And, just a short sprint from Union Station, up a black iron stairwell and across the busy Hill-To-Hill Bridge, is Brighton Court, a new 32-unit apartment building that once housed the headquarters of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The former Central Railroad Station at 3rd and Hamilton streets in Allentown also has been refurbished, and is for sale after a stint as the Gingerbread Man restaurant.

In Scranton, the $13-million conversion of the 78-year-old Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Station into a 150-room Hilton Hotel has been at the forefront of a redevelopment boom in the city's downtown. The brainchild of a Youngstown, Ohio, architectural firm, the project included complete restoration of the lobby and construction of a ballroom, two restaurants, two lounges, an exercise room and swimming pool. The station had been vacant 12 years before the Hilton opened its doors on New Year's Eve 1983.

"These things were built back when there was an enormous amount of money being made with coal and steel," says Thomas K. Diehl, sales manager of the Hilton at Lackawanna Station. "And that wealth is reflected in the buildings. Here, the architecture is French Renaissance. The interior lobby is imported marble. There are ornate murals on the walls and the ceiling is stained glass.

"Now that we've learned to re-use old buildings, railroad stationshave become popular again," says Carl Neu, president of the chamber of commerce in York, York County, where a former Baltimore & Ohio passenger station now serves as a photography studio and a ticket outlet for a local bus firm. "They're usually in a linchpin position for redevelopment areas. When trains disappeared, the areas where the railroads used to be became depressed. The refurbished station here in York is in a depressed area that's coming back."

South Bethlehem has been seeing a redevelopment revival of sorts, despite the continuing slide of Bethlehem Steel Corp. City officials see a rejuvenated Union Station as a plus.